


The Box Arrives

by phinnia



Series: All God's Children [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-18 18:50:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21281552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phinnia/pseuds/phinnia
Summary: "Oh, and there you are playing in the bath!""Oh, great.  Mum sentnudies."
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: All God's Children [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533431
Comments: 5
Kudos: 53





	The Box Arrives

Terry the delivery man shifted the box onto his other hip and knocked again. Why did nobody ever answer their blasted door until the third knock? It was freezing out here. 

Ah, there he was, the bumbling fat one. Nice chap. Queer as a three-pound note, but nice enough. The one in black was a tad spooky, but the bumbling fat one was all right.

"Delivery for you, sir." Terry held out the box. "Sign here, please." 

Aziraphale looked curiously at the box, blinked, and signed elaborately on the page. "Thanks very much."

"Welcome." 

"What was all that about?" Crowley says lazily from the sofa, drinking his glass of red wine.

"Oh, we got a box." Aziraphale comes into the back room. 

"You all right with that?"

"Oh, fine." He sets it down in front of his armchair.

"What is it? More books?"

"No." Aziraphale opens it up. "I think it's from your Mum." 

Crowley chokes on his wine and coughs for about two minutes. Aziraphale spends that time breaking the seals on the box. 

"Angel." Crowley wheezes, as soon as he can properly speak again. "Angel."

"What is it, dear boy?"

"Don't. Do _not_ look inside that box."

"But your mother sent it! I believe it's part of the Ineffable Plan to look inside this box."

"_Fuck_ the Ineffable Plan, do you want to sleep on the sofa for the rest of eternity?"

"You'd miss me. Plus I don't tend to sleep." And Aziraphale smiled that smile he smiled when he knew he was utterly right, and Crowley prays for discorporation by a lightning strike, or a passing iceberg, or perhaps an earthquake. 

"Oh, look! A letter!" Aziraphale takes out a sheet of paper.

"Oh, bollocks." Crowley says with doom in his voice. "A letter."

"She has lovely embossed notepaper. See? Rainbows.' Aziraphale holds it up. "And a marvelous gold pen. Dear Aziraphale and Crowley. Hope you are well. Everything's just working great up here with all the new changes. I got hooked on that Untitled Goose Game last week and played it for half a day. Isn't humanity fantastic?" Azriaphale looks over at Crowley. "What _is_ She talking about?"

"It's a computer game. You play a goose, the goose goes out and causes mayhem." Crowley says into his hands.

"You had nothing to do with this at all?"

"Nope. All humanity." 

"How peculiar." Aziraphale continues reading. "Gabriel is doing wonders on my filing cabinet, and I've found ever so many things I thought I'd lost. So I thought I'd pass some of them on. I have labelled them for you so you know what's what. Do come back Upstairs soon. We have an air-hockey table now and Michael's done fantastic things to the floors! I let her move on to the windows just yesterday. Also, a build-your-own-crepes station in the cafeteria. What do you think about profiteroles? Love and kisses, Mum." He sets the note down on a Louis XIV end table. "Oooh, photos! My goodness, is that _you_?"

"Oh, fuck."

"It is! You're utterly adorable in those coveralls, my sweet. Look at your precious little face! And you had _dimples_ then! And all that red hair sticking up everywhere! Is that Uriel holding you?"

Crowley sighed and looked at the picture. "Yeah. She usually put up with my wriggling and questions for a while." 

"Always with the questions. There you are playing with blocks! Look at those red and white striped pyjamas! Oh, and there you are playing in the _bath_!"

"Oh, great, Mum sent _nudies_."

Aziraphale picked up the next thing in the box. "These are Samshiel's first fledges. Oh, your wings were white then. The feathers are so _small_." He brushes one against his cheek. "I can scarcely believe these are _yours._. What's next? Oh, paintings! Where are all these from?"

Crowley looks over Aziraphale's shoulder. "Seraphim school, I think."

"Oh, yes. Indeed. So many! You were quite the budding artist."

Crowley rolls his eyes. "It wasn't actual firmament. It was just clouds and dye."

"I know, but you were so creative with it! There's something in the very bottom. Oh, my gracious." Azriaphale's jaw drops. "Look! Your very first _wing-print!_" Do you remember doing that?"

"Nope." He chuckles, putting his head in his hands again. "It was a while ago, Angel."

Azriaphale puts everything back in the box, carefully. "Well. I shall write your mother back."

"You can just call her, you know. I even have her mobile number. The one that gets past the bloody Metatron." 

"No, I think a letter would be best." Aziraphale starts looking for his own embossed notepaper. 

That night, Crowley dreamed of Heaven. It was strange. Usually his pre-Fall dreams were bad ones - twisted, warped, waiting for himself to take that final wrong step - being wrestled to the clouds and thrown off. The Fall itself. 

But not this time. 

He heard the sound of childlike laughter, like wind chimes tinkling. Looked down and saw small chubby hands, covered with clouds and dye. 

_Come along, Samshiel. Your turn now._

He feels the other, older angel take his hand, and then she walks along beside him. 

_You're gonna put my wings in there?_ A small, high pitched voice. His own. _Inside that cloud?_

_We certainly are. And then we'll have an imprint of the way they are today. So when you're bigger, you can remember today._

He feels the wet cloud around his child-wings. It is ... gooey, but it hardens into plaster. 

_There you go. All done now._

In the dream, he watches as the grey cloud hardens into a white one. 

Then he wakes up. Rubs his eyes. Sees the plaster cloud on the bedside table.

He'd thought Aziraphale had put that back in the box. 

Crowley smiles in the dark and puts his arms around Aziraphale, who was actually asleep for once. "Thanks, mum."


End file.
